Broken time
by pamy
Summary: He walks around with stuff that connects him to dead people, maybe in some way that makes him crazy. The watch had been a gift once upon a time, now it doesn't even tell time.


_**Don't own anything.**_

* * *

There's nothing special about it.

No matter which way he ( or anyone else ) looks at it, in the end it's simply a watch. He wears it on his left arm and it's simply always there. It's not a new watch, it has no special gadgets (it's not like he can watch TV on it or something) but it means something. Sometimes people stop to ask him the time ( sometimes his friends ask him as well), but he never answers. There's only one thing about the watch that's weird ( special in some way ) but nobody can actually see it, though eventually they do find out.

The watch doesn't actually tell time.

* * *

It had been a gift for his fifteenth birthday.

It hadn't been the best gift he had gotten that day, nor the most expensive. The watch had been just that a _simple_ watch, nothing more, nothing less. He had to admit that he had never expected _Lilly _(of all people) to give him a watch for his birthday, it seemed to normal, to boring for her. To this day he thinks the watch was actually Celeste's idea, but it doesn't matter, at least not anymore. He wore it every day of course, but it had more to do with the fact that he simply didn't own a watch. Back then it had been simple, clear even. Now it really wasn't, and he's not even entirely sure why.

There was even an inscription, though nothing special.

* * *

It wasn't important, wouldn't be important for a long time.

Then Lilly died and suddenly it was all over. Three simple words, whispered by a heart broken Veronica, and his entire world ended. It wouldn't have been so bad (he thinks) so important if they had simply grown apart, but she had to get herself killed and that was it. For a while it seemed as if the world stopped turning, and it turned out nothing made sense to him, nothing at all. He allowed anger to consume him whole because he simply didn't want to feel the pain, the grieve. He hid the watch somewhere where he didn't have to look at it.

He didn't want it to be special, wanted to go back to the time when it wasn't important.

* * *

It was months later when he noticed it for the first time.

He had begun to wear the watch again a while ago, but nobody ever asked him for the time. He doesn't know why, or maybe he does and he simply doesn't want to think about it. One day he looks at the watch and realizes it doesn't actually work anymore. It stopped telling time a while ago, and he's not even sure when it was. For all he knew it could have been when Lilly died, for all he knew it could just have stopped working. It seemed strange and ridiculous even but that's the moment he broke down. He cried for hours over a watch that didn't tell time anymore (in reality he's crying for his dead girlfriend).

He doesn't take it off, even though he should.

* * *

There was never a clear explanation.

He can't even explain it to himself, why it is that he can't bring himself to throw the watch away. He's not even sure why it doesn't work (could be anything really, could even be fixed easily) and he never bothers to find out. Perhaps that's the weirdest thing about it, the one thing he truly can't explain, he doesn't try to fix it either. He walks around with a watch (given to him by his dead girlfriend) on his left arm, a watch that doesn't actually tell time. But nobody ever asks him, so it doesn't really matter anyway, it's only important to him.

Someday somebody will ask, but he'll have no answers.

* * *

Sometimes he wonders if he's crazy.

Walking around with stuff that connect him to dead people, even if he doesn't know _why _he simply doesn't leave them home. There's a watch and a lighter, and they're important, but he doesn't understand _why. _He's pretty sure there are people in his class that think he's crazy, but the reality to those people is _they simply don't know. _They don't know about Lilly, or about his mom, or anything else that happened in high school. In some ways this is comforting, sometimes it's infuriating.

In the end he doesn't think it really matters.

* * *

He's not the only one.

Veronica walks around always wearing the necklace Lilly gave her, he's pretty sure she also wears something (anything) from Meg. Weevil probably has something of Felix and his grandmother, though he's never actually bothered to find out (never will either). Dick has boxes in their hotel room filled with Cassidy's stuff, stuff that he can't bring himself to throw away (despite the fact that Beaver was actually completely crazy and killed a buss full of people). So he's not alone, they're all doesn't this, carrying stuff around that connects them to dead people.

Maybe it just means they're all crazy.

* * *

Then suddenly there's Parker.

And she does want to know, she wants to understand. He doesn't explain it to her, because really he's never actually had to explain it, never had to say it out loud. Everyone always simply_ knew. _He had know there would come a day he'd have to tell someone the entire story, but he didn't expect it to come so soon, or hurt so much. He lies to her, tells her the watch just broke and he's been thinking about getting a new one. She gets him a watch for his nineteen birthday, a new model, a working model.

He thanks her, but he can't bring himself to mean it.

* * *

Later he places them next to each other.

He should throw away the old one, or at least put it away, and wear the new one. Except he can't bring himself to actually throw it away, to actually break with that part of his life. It seems stupid and ridiculous, but in some way it's all that he has of them, all that he needs of them. Next to each other the two watches don't seem all that different, one of them is newer of course but still apart from that they're almost the same. The only real difference is that one is working, and one doesn't tell time.

Even the inscription on the back is almost identical, just the name is different.

* * *

The next day he wears a _broken _watch on his left arm.

The other one is somewhere in his pocket, hidden away from the world. It doesn't make sense to do this, he knows it, but he's not the only one. After all it makes no sense to carry around a piece of paper found inside a fortune cookie, it doesn't make sense to hold on to the stuff of your psychotic little brother, but they _all still do it. _So he walks around with a watch that will never tell time, and a lighter that will never light a flame. He's sure there's some kind of psychological term for it, and maybe he should go see a shrink or something.

It doesn't matter, he never cared much about psychology anyway.

* * *

It's nothing special really.

And at the same time they're the most valuable stuff he owns. A lighter, hidden in his pocket, with an inscription on it. The words _free at last, _call out to him and at the same time anger him. Because Lynn (and Lilly, and Beaver ) might all be free, but the once they left behind definitely aren't. Sometimes he hates them, sometimes he wonders who he hates the most. It's strange (after everything she did ) but the one he ends up hating the most is his mum, closely followed by Cassidy. Because no matter what they all did, and everything that happened, in the end they _chose _to die.

Lilly never had a choice, Lilly's live was stolen.

* * *

It had been a gift, once upon a time.

Both things ended up meaning the same thing to him, despite the fact that they were very different in the beginning. The lighter, which had once been just that _a lighter , _is the closest he's ever been to his mother (which he thinks is kind of sad), but he doesn't do anything with it. It's hidden away in one of his pockets and will never light a flame again, not because it can't, but because he simply refuses to use it. The watch, which had once been the most ordinary gift ever, was now the most important gift Lilly ever gave him (after all it was the last). Despite the fact it didn't actually tell time anymore, it had been dead for years now, but then again so was Lilly.

In some twisted way, it actually makes sense.

* * *

_The lighter never lights a flame. _

That's okay because Lynn doesn't actually need it anymore.

_The watch doesn't actually tell time. _

That's okay because time doesn't really matter to Lilly anymore.

* * *

He put them next to each other once.

The inscriptions together formed a sentence, a structure. It seemed strange, and it wasn't actually meant to be that way, but he thinks it is some kind of a message anyway. He knows his mom left it there for a reason, just not the one he thought it was. He doesn't take it off, doesn't explain it to Parker either, at least not at first. He know he'll have to, even though he can't really explain it to himself, but the watch and the lighter are important.

Even if to her they'll never be special.

* * *

_Happy Birthday Logan, love you. _

_Lilly. _

_Free at last. _


End file.
